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Sonardyne supporting Fugro's North American surveys

4C Offshore | Tom Russell
By: Tom Russell 14/07/2020 Sonardyne Inc.
Fugro has chosen underwater positioning technology from Sonardyne Inc. for its upcoming offshore wind farm projects in North America.

Fugro has ordered three Sonardyne Mini-Ranger 2 Ultra-Short BaseLine (USBL) underwater positioning systems to support shallow water site characterisation surveys, and a standard Ranger 2 for positioning geotechnical boreholes that will influence turbine foundation design and installation.

In addition, Fugro has also ordered Wideband Sub-Mini 6+ (WSM 6+) and Nano transponders to fit to the underwater equipment it will be tracking with is new USBLs, including side-scan sonars and transverse gradiometer systems.

Mini-Ranger 2 is ideal for nearshore operations using small vessels, moored barges and unmanned surface vessels, and needing survey-grade positioning performance. Sonardyne stated that it can simultaneously track 10 targets at very fast update rates and operate at a range of up to 4,000 metres. For this application, the Mini-Ranger 2 HPT 3000 transceivers will be mounted ove the side of Fugro’s vessels to provide very shallow, high elevation tracking, without losing positioning accuracy.

Sonardyne stated that the Ranger 2 is its highest performing USBL system, capable of simultaneous long range target tracking, dynamic positioning (DP) and subsea communications. It is being supplied to Fugro with an HPT 7000 Gyro USBL which combines the vessel heading, pitch and roll data that’s critical to USBL system precision, with an acoustic transceiver in a single housing.

Using Gyro USBL means that owners can move their Ranger 2 between vessels of opportunity and avoid the need to undertake post-installation performance tests before subsea operations can begin, saving expensive vessel time.


“Ranger 2 is a great fit for Fugro’s busy work programme off the US East coast this summer. Investing in both Mini and standard Ranger gives them the flexibility to mobilise different size vessels for different tasks and have them working close to each other without causing interference. And because all versions of Ranger 2 use the same software, their crews will be able to easily switch between using the two systems,
” commented Char Franey, Sales Manager for Sonardyne in Houston.


Fugro is supporting surveys at a number of offshore wind farms in North America. Earlier this month the company mobilised two additional vessels off the coast of New Jersey to support its ongoing site characterisation work for Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind. Operating in the
Atlantic Shores lease area since May, Fugro now has three vessels on site, with a fourth to be added later this month.

Last month Fugro announced that it has mobilised two vessels off the coast of New York to perform a large-scale site characterisation programme for
Sunrise Wind, a joint offshore wind development from Ørsted and Eversource. The four month operation will involve acquisition and analysis of integrated geotechnical and geophysical data to support multiple phases of the Sunrise Wind project, including cable corridor selection and turbine foundation design and installation.

For more information on offshore wind farms worldwide, click here.

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